Page 61 of The Union
“Why didn’t my command to him work?” Steven asked.
Peter shrugged. “He might be programmed to only follow orders from one voice.”
“My grandmother’s,” I muttered as I eased into the cushioned seat.
“Or Adam’s or Carly’s,” Jo added.
The shifters stood by their alpha, watching and listening intently.
“Will he remember anything when he comes to?” Dr. Vieira asked Peter.
Peter banged on keys. “Not sure.” He sighed. “But the chip is off.”
Jo returned her dagger to its sheath. “Any way to turn it on again?”
“Whoever has access to the program can, but I’m not sure if they’ll need the headgear or not.”
“But the data we found on the chip says it has Bluetooth capabilities,” Cooper chimed in. “So why would you need a contraption to engage it?”
“We were close to adding that technology, but then I left the company,” Peter said. “So you might be right. I downloaded as much data as I could before I shut it down. I’ll need time to analyze it in more detail.” Peter rubbed the area on his neck where Sam had bitten him.
I might just cut the son of a bitch out. Sam was not about to become a robot for my grandmother’s army.
23
SAM
Voices seeped into my psyche as my head pounded like someone had beaten my skull in with a baseball bat. I opened my eyes and was met with blurriness until I blinked several times. Silver eyes, green eyes, and brown eyes came into focus.
“Welcome back, brother.” Jo’s voice sounded hollow.
“Welcome back, son,” my father parroted.
“You gave us quite the scare,” Doc said.
I squeezed my eyelids shut, inhaled, and Layla’s cherry scent seeped into my nostrils. My eyes flew open, searching, hunting, salivating to see her.
But a strong, disgusting smell singed my nose hairs, overpowering her fragrance. The fucking aroma evoked a memory I thought I had long forgotten. The Old Spice aftershave flipped a switch inside me, and I jerked to a sitting position, my gums throbbing, my throat burning, and the need to snap necks pulsing in my veins. My head swiveled one way, then the other as I looked for the fucker who’d tried to rape my sister.
“Where’s that asshole Cliff?” My narrowed gaze landed on a scrawny man with salt-and-pepper hair standing at the foot of my bed, fear soaking his bloodstained shirt.
Jo pushed on my chest as if she could hold me back. “Cliff? Why would you think Peter was our old foster dad?”
But Jo and Peter, or whoever the fuck the man was, vanished in an instant when Layla rose from a chair in the corner and stood next to the scrawny human.
Her beauty erased that dark memory, even though her body was rigid and her cheeks were pale. Something terrible had happened, and my veins filled with the need to murder whoever had my beautiful auburn-haired huntress basking in fear.
She studied me—no smile, no light in those ball-squeezing, electric-blue eyes.
My gaze skimmed her gorgeous body. Her yellow V-neck sweater accentuated her mouthwatering gargantuan tits. Her hair was piled on top of her head, bringing out her long, smooth neck. Then my mind short-circuited. Her belly was big. Since when?
I scanned the room. What the fuck was I doing in the infirmary? My mind frantically searched for a reason why I was in a hospital bed with people staring at me as though I was the main attraction at a museum.
My memory latched onto Layla and me in my bedroom with her underneath me and my cock inside her.
I sucked her nipples into my mouth before kissing my way up to her neck. Then I sank my fangs into her perfect flesh. She shouted my name as her orgasm crashed into me, heightening my senses and tightening my balls as I fucked her like a man on steroids. A minute later, I roared my release, my cock throbbing in her tight pussy. A wave of deep emotion infiltrated my heart as I looked into her eyes. “Marry me, baby doll.”
I blinked several times before our gazes collided.
